The Dangers of Embracing Victimhood

This post will explore the prevalent attitude of victimhood and how that affects people's outlook on life. I will also look at how this affects the emotional health of children. 

What is a victim? 

Webster defines a victim as someone killed in a religious rite; someone that dies from a disease or accident; or a person cheated, fooled, or injured. For our purposes here, I want to go with the politically correct definition. A victim represents a person that is not in control of his circumstances. Outside forces dictate the entirety of this person's existence. I included the Webster definition of a victim to show that progressives often play with the meaning of words. They very often water down the criteria for something such as victimhood to make it apply in a situation where it really does not. In doing so, they make all victimhood less relevant. What do I mean by this? We would all agree that a person that is murdered or injured deserves the title of victim. However, by using the word victim to describe someone that is merely suffering from their own bad choices because of the color of their skin or station in life, progressives give the impression that these people are victims of some amorphous societal evil. What does this do to the people that fall prey to these word plays. They develop a victim mentality. 

What is victim mentality?

A victim mentality involves believing that you have no control over your circumstances. You believe that the structure of society will never let you succeed no matter how hard you try. It is a defeatist attitude and greatly stifles a person's gumption and creativity. If you truly believe that hard word has no benefits, then you do not have a problem letting someone else take care of you. This attitude makes you believe the world owes you everything because the great amorphous society at large has caused you not to succeed. Your own lack of ambition does not matter. Everyone deserves an equal outcome.  

 How does victim mentality affect a person's life?

As I stated before a victim mentality negates ambition. Is ambition a good thing or a bad thing? Like so many other areas of life, ambition needs to be balanced with other character traits.  Too much ambition makes people greedy. Too little ambition makes people lazy. No ambition makes people useless. If a person truly believes that no amount of hard word will benefit them, why would any person put forth any effort? Whether we admit it or not, all people have a tendency to laziness. It comes naturally. Therefore, most of us will do just as much work as we deem necessary for survival. Those with a strong work ethic learned early in life that hard work pays off and makes survival more likely. What happens to people that do not learn this lesson early in life? They either learn it or they expect someone else to take care of them. Those that fall prey to a victim mentality fall into the latter category. However, this arrangement hardly ever leads to bounty. Most of the time, this arrangement leads to want and poverty. When able-bodied people expect other people to take care of them, those that have to do the work resent it. No one wants to work hard just to have someone else gain all the benefits unless those that do constitute that person's loved ones. We will work hard to provide for those that we love. If we have to work hard just to see it go to someone else while our loved ones suffer want, that breeds anger. Want to divide a nation? Making people work hard to provide for able-bodied people to sit on their butts and do nothing will soon cause either a civil war or a cessation of work. The hard workers will simply quit trying and only do what is absolutely necessary. This explains the failure of socialism more completely than any other explanation. When the hard workers quit, everyone suffers and falls into poverty. As Margaret Thatcher once said, "the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." 

It also stands that killing a strong work ethic leads to depression and despair. Living a life of purpose requires work. All the vacations and good times in the world soon wax cold when not balanced with a hard day's work. Something in a our DNA needs to accomplish tasks. It is the hard day's work that make the vacations sweeter. Like ambition, leisure needs to be balanced with work. Too little work in a person's life takes away a person's well-being. Therefore, a victim mentality robs a person of purpose and brings destruction to those that fall prey to it.  

 What does a victim mentality do to children's emotional health?

Now let us take this into the early childhood world. What does it do to children's emotional health to instill a victim mentality into them? Is it necessary to instill a strong work ethic into the young? This should be a no-brainer. Children that believe the world owes them everything constitute the most spoiled people on the planet. It used to be common knowledge that when a child works for what they have, they appreciate it more. How did our world become so upside down? It is long since time that early childhood professionals begin to understand the underlying agendas that make this world go round. Pushing a victim mentality makes a population more susceptible to embracing the tenets of socialism. If you do not think this is happening in our country, please open your eyes. When children are trained from a young age to think of themselves as victims, they can be easily brainwashed to think that socialism will bring utopia. Socialism never brings anything but dystopia. My generation knew that. The subsequent generations have been slowly brainwashed to believe that socialism is not so bad. Hard work matters greatly. One of the most important lessons you can teach the children in your care involves a solid work ethic. People that understand hard work will not fall prey to a victim mentality even if bad things happen to them. They pull themselves up by the bootstraps and do what is necessary to survive. A victim mentality sets children up for failure, poverty, and want. 

 Conclusion

In conclusion, I want to touch on how VERY dangerous it is for children of color to be trained to be victims. In a nutshell, that is the new Jim Crow laws. When children of color are led to believe that no amount of hard work will pay off, you kill their work ethic. Basically, you are destroying all chance that these children will grow up to be creators and entrepreneurs. We do not want any population of people to be dependent on others for their sustenance. If you have ever been in that situation, you know that it is akin the slavery. It traps people in circumstances that are not necessarily good for them. That, people, is the definition of racism. 

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! 

https://linktr.ee/natawade

The Dangers of Being Gullible and Naive

This post will discuss the dangers of being gullible and naive as it pertains to philosophies and agendas. This post is meant for Christian educators and parents.

Definition of Gullible and Naive
Webster defines gullible as being easily deceived or duped. The Urban Dictionary defines naive as "unsophisticated, susceptible to influence, trusting unsubstantiated sources at times. Generally speaking, to be naive means you do not think enough. People who are "naive" tend to believe in whatever they are told, without questioning whether it is right or wrong." I believe the Bible would define both of these words in the following verse from Collosians:  See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy or empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ (NASB). I like that the Bible uses the word "captive" because it denotes the agendas of men. Most of the narratives of our modern era are meant to take people captive and give other people power. When you begin to understand that, you begin to see through the deception.

Our World of Agendas
Everyone has an agenda. The sooner you learn that the wiser you will be. Most people believe that scientific research comes without any bias and can be taken as gospel. Most people follow this research without once stepping back and looking to see if the researchers had an agenda. Some agendas are obvious. When a research project has been funded by a certain entity or corporation the agenda is not hard to discern. However, most researchers have an agenda of some sort. They go into the research project looking for a certain outcome. No matter how careful these researchers try to be, this will skew the results in the direction of their preconceived notions. Other agendas can be deeply hidden and come from sources outside the researchers themselves. These biases and agendas come from the underlying knowledge base. In any study, scientists build their hypotheses on what is called "given" information. This is supposed to represent knowledge that has been proven over time, but this does not make it infallible. We have all witnessed knowledge that has turned out to be completely wrong based on new information. What if the debunked information is never purged from the knowledge base? That happens much more than you think. Sometimes knowledge is protected for purely political or philosophical reasons without truly having any basis in reality. This skews the research before it even starts. 

How Can You Detect Agendas?
I will go back to my statement that everyone has an agenda. You must look at information and especially information with the title "the latest research" with suspicion right off the bat. Does it have an obvious bias? If so, chunk it immediately. The next place you look with suspicion is the authors of the information. Do they have an agenda? If so, chunk it immediately. Once you have chunked the obvious biased information, it becomes a little more tricky. Now you are reaching the deep underlying biases and agendas. Here you need a good working knowledge of the Word of God. Our Father, as the Creator of this universe, just might know a thing or two about how this world works. If the new information contradicts the Word of God, chunk it. I will also say that if the new information makes you feel uneasy and uncomfortable, many times this is the Holy Spirit trying to warn you. I can remember being deeply disturbed in school when certain subjects would come up. I did not know it then, but those topics came with deep relativistic agendas. My tender heart picked up on the falseness without realizing why. Now as an adult, I understand why those topics disturbed me. They were not built on the right foundation. Trust your instincts and learn to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Will This Not Make Me Cynical?
If you read the Word of God, you will actually realize that God wants you to be cynical of worldly knowledge. We are supposed to look at the knowledge of man with skepticism. Modern man has lost that entirely. We look at God with skepticism and trust everything that science teaches us. However, true science that simply describes the wonders of God's creation will never contradict the Bible. If science contradicts the Bible, you have man's wisdom and not God's wisdom. As children of God we must relearn the fact that all the depths of knowledge and wisdom are hidden in Him. He made us. He knows the reality of the situation. We must learn to trust Him.

Conclusion
Now let us take this into the early childhood realm. I will tell you outright that most if not all of what you have been taught as early childhood professionals either outright contradicts the Word of God or partially contradicts the Word of God. The theorists that make up the foundation of early childhood study were all relativists. They did not believe in God and they did not build their knowledge on the Word of God. That should disqualify most if not all of their knowledge for Christian educators. However, you have been taught to compartmentalize your religious beliefs and your education whether you realize that or not. God NEVER intended for you to do that. To divorce His knowledge and His wisdom from your base of study is to be the victim of agendas. Worldly people are forcing you to do the opposite of what should be done to make this world a place without God. They will never succeed in that, but they can do irreparable damage to you and the children in your care. Do not be gullible and naive.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

Cognitive Development for 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds - Science

This post will look at the area of learning - Science with the components - Sensory Awareness, Observation, and Exploration and Sequencing and Time . Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

We will start with the component  - Sensory Awareness, Observation, and Exploration. The learning expectation for this one is:  Begins to build knowledge of the world through observation of surroundings. The performance indicator for this one is:  Explores ways to do things and demonstrates beginning understanding of concepts of color, shape size, matching, and weight.  One word in that performance indicator makes this one unrealistic and that word is explore. To be brutally honest, I do not see much exploring unless that child is raised on a farm or is homeschooled. Those children usually spend a great deal of time outdoors unless they live in urban areas in the case of the homeschooled. Children in institutionalized care have nearly had their curiosity helicoptered out of them. I know I have harped on the regulations before, but they really are damaging our children. Truly, if I am honest, I will admit that children need to stay home with their mother. It is by far the best environment for children and we should as a society be pushing that instead of careers for mothers. Motherhood is a career, people. It is one of the most important jobs a woman can have in my opinion. Children of stay-at-home mothers do all the things that seem to be disappearing from the children of our society. They explore and discover sometimes much to the horror of their mother. However, they have the richest childhood. Do you want to make childhood magical for your child? Stay home with them until they go to school. Do you want to extend the magic? Homeschool. Rant over.

Next we will move on to the component - Sequencing and Time. The first learning expectation for this one is:  Begins to understand consequences when re-creating events. The first performance indicator for this one is:  Calls for adult to help settle a fight over a toy. For once we have a universal performance indicator that most children even developmentally delayed children conquer. Going to an adult to referee can be seen in children even younger than two sometimes. Extremely smart eighteen month olds can employ this strategy. If a two and a half year old does not go to an adult to referee, caregivers can take that as a sign of a severe developmental delay. The only children in my care that did not conquer this performance indicator had severe autism.

The second performance indicator is:  Insists on putting on mittens before putting on coat. This one made me chuckle. This has to be one of the most frustrating aspects of two year old world. It is also one of the performance indicators that seem to be universally conquered. Children at this age spread their wings of independence and seem to want to do everything backwards from what seems logical. As long as it does not really matter, leave this one alone. It is a developmentally appropriate milestone. However, you can begin to explain to them why it is backwards. They may not change but you will be planting the first seeds of logical thinking. Never underestimate the power of planting seeds!

Now we will move on to the learning expectation:  Demonstrates some understanding of when things happen in relation to routines. The first performance indicator is:  Imitates simple block structures and single-line crayon strokes. Unless the child is used to teacher directed activities expecting a child in today's society to pay attention enough to imitate might be expecting a little much. Those children that are used to this type of activity will conquer this one without much issue. However, do not expect them to do it the first time you try if they are not used to this type of activity. It may take several exposures for them to understand what you are expecting from them. Doing this type of activity with a mixed-age group that includes older children will actually deliver the best result.

Finally, the second performance indicator is:  Chooses new shoes to wear when getting ready for a special occasion.  Most children like new things. This holds true for normally developing children as well as developmentally delayed children at this age. Although, severely delayed or severely autistic children might not conquer this one until they are a little bit older.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

The Dangers of Elitism

This post will look at the concept of elitism and how that functions in our society. I will also discuss how this plays out in an early childhood setting. This post is for Christian educators.

What is Elitism?
Elitism is the belief or attitude that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people with an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole, and therefore deserve influence or authority greater than that of others. In our modern society, our elitist class would be the academics and the wealthy. However, elitism can rear its ugly head even among middle and lower class people to some degree. I will define elitism as thinking more highly of yourself and your circle of influence than you do of others. How many times do you catch yourself looking down on someone else because of their station in life or their lack of ability? Maybe you tell yourself that you feel sorry for that person, but realistically you are snobbing them. How many times have you been snobbed by someone else? We all do this to some degree. We cast an aversive glance toward someone that is not in OUR group. However, I will tell you that the level of elitism increases with the amount of education that you have. It seems that the more "intelligent" you believe yourself to be, the more likely you are to look down on other people that you consider to not be as "intelligent." The Bible says that "knowledge puffs up." This statement lives out in the real world on a daily basis. Elitists puff out their chests and strut around like peacocks. However, the Bible tells us "do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit but with humility of mind let each of you consider others to be more important than himself." We should not be snobbing anyone. It is a sin.

How does modern Elitism compare to the Pharisees and Sadducees of the Bible?
The Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus' time very much mirror our elites today. They considered themselves to be the highest educated individuals of the time. They also considered themselves morally superior to everyone else. Today's elites consider themselves to be more highly educated than the rest of us. They also consider themselves to be morally superior to those that do not agree with them. How did Jesus view the Pharisees and Sadducees? He hardly ever had nice words for them. His descriptions included hypocrites, white-washed tombs, and the blind leading the blind. Jesus did not at all have a high opinion of them. Why is that? Jesus despises pride, selfishness, and empty conceit. The only way to earn Jesus' respect involves humility. That was a hard pill for the Pharisees and Sadducees to swallow. It is also a hard pill for our elites of today to swallow as well.

Elitism vs. Wisdom
Do the elites of today have a point that they have more right to rule because of their high education? NO NO and double NO!! Education can only be as valuable as the underlying information that supports it. If you have been highly educated with information that is false and/or misleading, then the quality of your education is false and/or misleading. I believe it to be worse than worthless because of the intrinsic value placed on it by our present society. How can you tell if you have a worthless education and may be falling into the trap of elitism? Here is the key. Are you puffed up? Wisdom brings about humility because we know that there remains so much out in the world that we do not know. Knowledge puffs up and thinks it has attained the highest form of being to date. Do you think you know better than someone else just because you studied a bunch of theorists and philosophers? Knowing what these people say is not what I am against. Thinking you know more than others because you know what these people say remains the problem. These theorists and philosophers were men. How do their words and ideas compare with the Word of God which is eternal. If you ever find yourself siding with the theorists and philosophers over the Word of God which came to us from our Creator, you might just have a worthless education and have fallen prey to the sin of elitism. We are all fallen creatures in need of help and assistance from our Creator. Unless that is your foundation, you might have a problem.

Elitism in the Early Childhood World
Elitism in the early childhood world runs rampant. We as early childhood educators are trained whether we realize it or not to think that our training trumps all. Anyone or any other philosophy that disagrees with the training we have, makes us balk and cringe. We have studied these things and we know that the best way to do something is (fill in the blank). This, people, displays the very heart of elitism. Even the words "best practice" reveal the elitism of professional people. How do they know that their remedy is "best practice" in every situation? They do not. They just think that they do, and that, my friends, is the problem.

Conclusion
My fellow Christian early childhood educators, how do you treat people that do not have the training that you have received? Do you treat them as ignorant? Have you placed your training beside the Word of God to make sure that you have not fallen for lies and deception? How do you treat parents that do not agree with your training? Do you snob people? These questions lie at the heart of the issue. When we add correct knowledge to our repertoire, we learn that there remains so much that we do not know. It makes us feel more inadequate not less. This leads to humility. False knowledge puffs up and makes people think they know it all. I urge you to apply this test and reexamine how you relate to the people around you. I way say it again. Snobbery is a sin.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

Cognitive Development for 2 to 2 1/2 year olds - Math

This post will look at the area of learning - Math covering the components - Numbers, Patterns, Spatial Sense, and Problem Solving. Remember that I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

We will start with the component - Numbers with the learning expectation - Begins to build understanding of more, and one-to-one correspondence. The performance indicator for this one is:  Responds to "one" and "one more"; begins to count by imitation. Like most everything, a language delay will affect this performance indicator. Children without a language delay will conquer this one easily, but I am seeing so many children with language delays that the delay is becoming the norm. These standards were developed well over a decade ago and they no longer apply. I see this behavior in 3 year olds not 2 year olds. What are we doing to our children?

Next, we move on to the component - Patterns with the learning expectation - Begins to understand the relationship between objects, solving simple jigsaw puzzles and matching similar shapes. The first performance indicator for this one is:  Begins to identify simple objects by their use, color, and shape. I fear I will be a broken record in this post. A child must have a certain level of language development to conquer this performance indicator. I have seen 3 year olds struggle with this performance indicator because it also assumes quite a bit of attention capability. Many of today's children do not pay enough attention to detail to notice use, color, and shape much less identify it. I have found that many of these areas have to be directly taught before children attain this level. They will not discover this without exposure.

The second performance indicator for this one is:  Correctly stacks nesting cups, completes simple inset puzzles, and completes stacking ring in correct order through trial and error. I will start with the last one. Any teacher will tell you that the majority of children today will not stay with a task long enough to figure anything out by trial and error. That is laughable. I have had 4 year olds that I had to work with to make them understand inset puzzles. Stacking nesting cups became one of my items to learn before kindergarten my last several years of teaching preschool. It is hard to believe that these skills used to be considered normal for 2 to 2 1/2 year olds. Even with instruction many, many 2 year olds will struggle with these skills but this is the age where you should start the instruction. Exposure will finally bring about success.

Now we will move on to the component - Spatial Sense with the first learning expectation:  Matches circle, square, and triangle shapes. The performance indicator for this one is:  Uses trial and error to complete circle, triangle, square form board. Two words in that performance indicator make this one laughable - trial and error. Not many children in the 21rst century have enough patience to learn anything by trial and error. However, many 2 year olds can learn their shapes using direct instruction. Children at this age often know more words than they can say. When you work with them directly, they can learn this by the time they are 2 1/2 years old if you start when they turn 2 years old.

The second learning expectations is:  Explores world, and understands position in space and how to get around. The performance indicator for this one is:  Understands how to climb up, go around, in, or through various spaces to get to or to reach an out of reach object. This performance indicator, since it has little to do with language, actually usually does not present a problem for most 2 year olds. We all know how adept they are at climbing and getting to something out of their reach. Some children are very adept causing much consternation for parent and caregiver alike. However, this performance indicator can also be "helicoptered" from existence. If you never, ever let them explore in this fashion, it will cause them to miss valuable lessons in risk necessary for this age. We cannot save them from all the bumps and bruises that come with normal childhood. We can, however, bolt down all heavy furniture so they do not kill themselves.

Lastly, we will look at the component - Problem Solving with the learning expectation - Explores materials and understands simple acts of cause and effect. The performance indicator for this one is:  Begins to build simple block designs through trial and error. Two things about that performance indicator make it laughable -  blocks and trial and error. Children these days do not play with blocks like they once did. Most children dump blocks, throw blocks, and maybe use blocks in dramatic play but very few actually build with the blocks. In the latter years of my tenure as a preschool teacher (I am now retired), I had to directly teach them how to build with blocks. I have already covered the ludicrous aspect of children in today's world learning anything through trial and error so I will not belabor the point. In today's entertainment culture you will probably find it necessary as I did to directly teach many things we learned as children through simple play. This will be one of them.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

The Dangers of Building on the Wrong Foundation

This post will look at the importance of building your philosophies and worldview on the right foundation. This post is for Christian educators.

What Is Your Foundation?
Everyone in this world has a philosophical base upon which they screen all information they receive. Many people do this without even realizing that it happens. Do you know what your philosophical foundation is? Most people do not or think they have one foundation when in reality they have another. As Christian educators, most of us believe that we have a Biblical foundation or worldview, but do we? Many of us have let our education and training override our Christian values without knowing that it happened. Let me give you some self-reflection questions that will help you decide if you truly have a Biblical worldview. (1) Do you believe in the sin nature or do you believe that all people are born with a clean slate and learn sin behavior? (2) Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father or do you believe that there are many paths to the Father? (3) Do you believe in absolute standards of right and wrong or do you believe everything can be categorized into different shades of gray? (4) When the Bible and your training conflict, which one do you follow?  If you answered yes to any of the second parts of those questions, you do not have a true Biblical worldview. You have a mix of Biblical and humanistic worldviews. If you answered yes to all of the second parts of the previous questions, you do not have a Biblical worldview at all.

Why Does it Matter?
Some of you may have had to answer yes to the second half of some of those questions and now have started to take offense at me. However, I ask you to back up and reflect. As Christians we are called to be salt and light in this world. If the world cannot tell the difference between us and the rest of the world, we fail at this job. Being a Christian involves more than just church attendance and/or trying to be "good." If we do not follow His word, we are not following Him. Do we really think that is okay? I know how much our "training" skews from God's perspective and quite a bit of the time outright contradicts what the Word of God teaches. The time has come for us to stand up and tell these "trainers" enough is enough. As Christian early childhood educators we have been entrusted with our most precious resource at the time when they are the most impressionable. God will hold us to higher standards. He does not take lightly when we cause these little ones to stumble. He will not accept our excuses over what the culture demands. He called us to come out of them and be separate. It matters greatly to our Father in Heaven how we conduct ourselves as early childhood educators. Make sure you understand where your foundation lies and make double sure that you build upon the Rock and not the sinking sand of the world around us.

How Do You Fix a Faulty Foundation?
What do you do if you realize that you have not been building on the Rock? Number one, you have to know what the Word of God says. Reading your Bible should be the daily habit of every Christian. A carpenter knows his tools before he lays a foundation. A Christian must knows his "tools" before trying to lay a foundation for life. Number two, you have to make a conscious choice to do what the Word of God says. Reading the Bible everyday is worthless if it goes in one ear and out the other. The foundation does not magically build itself. It takes effort and sacrifice. Number three, you have to filter through your beliefs and make sure they line up with the Word of God. This represents probably the most painful part of this process. It takes humility and a teachable spirit to admit you have swallowed lies. It takes courage to stand up to those lies and change. However, knowing that you live your life in the center of His will cannot be equaled.

Conclusion 
The purpose of this post is not to make you feel bad and then leave you. I wrote this post to challenge you to question everything you have been taught and filter it through the Word of God. The time has come for the church of God to take a stand and push back on all the nonsense we have shoved down our throats. The time has come for us to trust God to take care of us, show us His way of doing our jobs, and let Him take care of the fallout. We need to affect the culture not the other way around. Be His hands and feet in the early childhood world. Do not be afraid to toss aside many of our "best practices" because they are lies of the evil one. Be strong and courageous in the time that God has put you.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

Language Development for 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds - Communication (Part 3)

This post will finish the discussion of the component - Expressive Language. Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

We will start with the learning expectation - Uses words and some conventions of speech to express thoughts and ideas. The first performance indicator is:  Puts together two or more words to make simple sentences. As early childhood professionals we are often counting words to see when this age group will start putting two or more words together. When I first started childcare 15 years ago, children reached this milestone rather easily. I noticed with every passing year that more and more children struggled with first simple sentences and then words in general. For a long time I blamed lack of exposure to oral reading activities as the culprit, but as the years passed it took more and more intervention to pull these children up. Now, I am almost convinced that environmental chemicals in our food supply and overall environment may be causing slow detrimental harm to our children. I wish someone would start asking serious hard questions about the "science" that we have been fed as "safe." Our children seem to be in a fog. I have had enough chemistry and biology to understand that we may be altering the developmental trajectory of an entire generation.

The second performance indicator is:  May use pronouns incorrectly. Nowadays, most teachers would be thrilled beyond belief to have the children use pronouns at all before the age of three. Many, many children barely talk at all before two and a half these days. If a child this age uses pronouns, count yourself blessed whether they use them correctly or not. If you see a child beginning to seriously lag at this age, you might want to begin not just speech intervention but maybe purging processed food from their diet. As childcare providers you also might want to look at removing as many chemicals from your environment as possible. Many more natural options for cleaning are available. It makes a bigger difference than you realize.

The third performance indicator is:  Demonstrates through actions the understanding of action verbs like "run," "hit," "jump," "climb." Oral recognition of words develops faster than spoken speech. Therefore, more children conquer this one as opposed to the spoken speech indicators. However, I have still seen about 25% of children that lag in oral understanding of words. These are the children that truly seem to live in a constant fog until closer to their third birthday or beyond. If you find that your children seem to need extra practice in oral language, make sure you tell oral stories that involve lots of action words letting the children act out those actions.

The next performance indicator is:  Begins to use social conventions such as "please" and "thank you." Instead of going off this time about lagging language development, I want to talk about the destruction that too much choice has done to manners. Basic social manners has all but faded from public discourse, and a great causation of that involves making children believe that they do not have to do anything that they do not want to do. It takes a certain amount of coercion to teach children that they need to say "please" and "thank you." A great deal of them will not do it without gentle coercion. In today's crazy politically correct society, adults are not allowed even gentle coercion anymore. This is ridiculous. Teach the children in your care to say "please" and "thank you" when they do begin to talk. Be a part of the solution to our mess and not another crazy addition to the mob that keeps telling us we cannot expect anything of children anymore. Everyone that comes into contact with your children will thank you.

The last performance indicator is:  50% of what the child is saying is understood by unfamiliar listeners; familiar listeners understand more. Wow! I have seen many four year olds that cannot be understood by strangers. If I see a two to two and a half year old nowadays that can be understood by strangers, I take note and ask questions. That is how rare it is. My own biological children were nearly speaking in paragraphs by the age of two and a half but that was nearly 30 years ago. So much has changed. Maybe someday we will get these metrics going in a good direction.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

The Dangers of Rushing to Judgment

This post will look at the societal and emotional damage caused by rushing to judgment and how that affects the children in our care.

Dirty Laundry Culture
As we launch into this topic, I felt that this would be the perfect place to start. We live in a dirty laundry culture that rushes to judgment constantly. We fixate on all the juicy dirt on anyone and everyone while not considering the consequences of this fixation. Don Henley's song might as well be the anthem of our time. All of this juicy gossip brings us momentary pleasure until it is our dirty laundry that someone has spread to the ends of the Earth. When will we ever learn that we reap what we sow? When you take delight in another person's sorrow and difficulty and do not give them the benefit of the doubt, you will someday reap the very same difficulty. It is built into the universe and you cannot escape it. Gossip comes with an enormous price. It is not a innocent sin that receives a wink from God. Gossip destroys people's lives and livelihoods. Unfortunately, most of us do not learn this lesson until we are on the receiving end of gossip.

The New Puritans
Mix our culture's tendency with other people's dirty laundry and the removal of absolute moral standards and you have today's version of Puritans. These new Puritans follow political correctness down to the letter. They are also extremely adept at twisting narratives to fit their politically correct agenda. They use our culture's tendency toward dirty laundry to destroy their adversaries through allegations. However, they excuse their own sins though virtue signaling. As long as they follow every politically correct cause, they feel themselves to be better than those that do not. However, the ever shifting foundation of social norms, like gossip, comes with a high price. On the surface, social norms seem harmless. A country should be able to determine its own moral standards, right? No. Social norms shift with the mob and you never know when the social norms will shift out from under you. It is imperative to keep up with the latest trends so that this never happens to you. If you happen to miss a new shift, you will quickly find yourself on the wrong side of the mob with your only option being extreme apologies and self-deprecation. Not only must you keep up with the ever changing narrative, but you must also not cross the wrong person. If you do, you will find out quickly how adept they are at twisting a narrative. Every act from your past that does not meet today's standard of political correctness will be paraded for all to see. Depending on how bad you have crossed the wrong person will determine your level of penance and sometimes you will be deemed irredeemable and declared whatever "ist" they find appropriate. The problem with living this way should be obvious. Political correctness shifts almost constantly. It is exhausting to try to keep up with it. Many well-meaning people suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the mob for reasons they do not understand. Then just like the Puritans of old, these new Puritans excommunicate you or worse because you failed to live up to their standards. Mix this new phenomenon with our dirty laundry culture and it makes perfect sense that our suicide rate has skyrocketed. People, you do not have to live this way. Jesus provided grace for us because we will never be able to meet any kind of standards on our own. We will fail and failure is simply not an option in this culture.

The Ugly Truth of Our Success Culture
If you have taken a "success" course recently, you might have noticed that these courses paint life as if it should go from one success to the next success. Businesses should constantly grow and expand. Our careers should always go up and never down or sideways. They teach us that if we use the right systems and make the right contacts that our professional lives will be an ever increasing proposition. Real life does not work like that. Life is an endless series of hills and valleys. When success oriented people hit a valley, they freak out. One of the ways that many success oriented people deal with downturns involves pulling other people down to make themselves look better. Another way they mask failure is through virtue signaling. The first example reflects using gossip to make yourself feel better about failure. The second one uses the puritan culture to mask your own insufficiencies. Many people do not tie our cultural push for success with political correctness but it goes hand in hand. The new Puritans must always be right and therefore must always be successful. This causes people to hide their flaws at all costs and rush to judgment against other people to distract from their own failures. The name of this awful practice is projection. People very often accuse others of what they themselves have done in order to distract people from the real mistakes and sometimes outright crimes. They need everyone to rush to judgment on the other person so that they can quietly exit out the back door.

What Ever Happened to Forgiveness?
I hope the three previous sections have opened your eyes to the true state of our current cultural climate. People live in constant fear of doing or saying the wrong thing and finding themselves on the wrong side of the mob. Those that feel they have all the power direct the mob to hide all of their own insufficiencies. I do not know about you but I am sick of the mob. I want forgiveness back. I want to go back to a time when people understand that we are all sinners saved by grace. We all make mistakes. We all do stupid things. We cannot go from success to success. I want a culture that understands the hills and the valleys even the valleys of our own creation. This present reality cannot be sustained. We have reached a breaking point to where either we will come to our senses and dethrone the political correctness tyrant or we will find that we no longer live in a free society. That second reality will mean that this horrible state of affairs will go on and on and on.

How Do We Restore Sanity?
Number one, make a covenant with your soul that you will never be a part of the mob. Teach yourself to step back and understand that there is always two sides to any story. Be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. In other words, do not rush to judgment. Number two, refuse to play by their rules. Going along to get along does not work anymore. We have reached a point in our society where either you will step up or you will concede all of your liberties. We do not have to define anything by their terms and we do not have to apologize for it either. Stop apologizing for moral standards. The only way to stop a bully is to call their bluff and be prepared for some hurt in the process. When they see you stand your ground, they will freak out and require a safe space. Personally, I do not want to live like this anymore. I have faced the mob down before and it was ugly for a season. Then it turned into empowerment and liberation. Nothing comes without cost but our liberties are worth the fight.

Conclusion
Now let us take this into the early childhood realm. What are you modeling for the children in your care? Do they hear you gossiping about others? Do they see you bully parents into submission over differences? Remember you are surrounded by little sponges that soak up everything they see and hear. Are you very deliberate in getting to all the truth before you judge? The only way we stop this epidemic of rushing to judgment involves both teaching ourselves not to go there and teaching the little ones a different way.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

Language Development for 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds - Communication (Part 2)

This post will continue the discussion of language development finishing up the component - Receptive Language and beginning the component - Expressive Language.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Development Standards (TN-ELDS).

First, let us finish the component - Receptive Language and the learning expectation - Understands questions, simple directions, beginning concepts, and the ideas and sequence of stories. The last performance indicator for this one is:  Begins to answer questions such as "What's this?" when looking at a book. To be honest, I have seen a lot of three year olds that do not do this. I have stated on multiple occasions that the questioning from children has all but disappeared. This distresses me greatly. What have we done to our children that we have all but killed a child's natural inquisitiveness? To make matters worse, today's parents do not understand that something is missing. However, grandparents that have been paying attention realize that something is amiss. Is it the electronics and smart phones? Is it processed food or some other environmental factor? I do not know. I do know that many, many children do not have adults that read to them on a regular basis, but the level of decline cannot be fully explained by lack of reading alone. Many children of previous centuries did not have availability to books but they still retained the inert inquisitiveness. This is a truly recent development. People, let these children play outside. Take the smart phones away and feed them whole natural food. It cannot hurt to make these changes and it may reset the downward spiral I have observed.

Now we will move on to the component - Expressive Language. The first learning expectation for this one is:  Participates in conversation. The first performance indicator for this learning expectation is:  Uses vocabulary of 50+ words; some children can reach up to 200 words. At the age of two years old, a great schism occurs in language development. Some two year olds soar off into the stratosphere while others barely communicate at all. This is the age where personalizing instruction becomes greatly important. Not all two year olds are created equal. This is also the age where a child will begin to display how he/she learns. I have an extensive library of posts on learning styles on this blog. You can use the search engine to find them if you like. They were posted in 2014. A child that does not display a working vocabulary of 50 words by two and a half may need to start receiving language intervention. It could be a sign of development delay or it could also be caused by environmental factors. Both situations call for intervention at different levels.

The next performance indicator is:  Asks lots of "what" questions (e.g., "What's this - - - -?"). As I said in the first section, the questioning from children has all but disappeared at this age. I have even seen a large decline in three year olds that ask a lot of these questions. This lack of questioning presents a very large problem because this remains one of the biggest ways that children build vocabulary. If that same child does not have an adult that reads to him/her then the language delay grows even larger. If your two to two and a half year old is not asking questions, you may need to model this behavior for them. Ask them "what's this?" You may also have to tell them the name of the object but you may also jumpstart their own curiosity.

The next performance indicator is:  Likes to sing songs.  I am happy to finally say that this one is usually universally conquered. Even children with developmental delays learn to sing songs. Something about music connects with all children. However, one note of caution is in order. Be careful, what kind of music in which you expose the children. Many, many childcare providers have situations when children start spouting off pop lyrics that are wholly inappropriate for their age. When children listen to music, they will pick up much more than you bargain for sometimes. Be careful.

The last performance indicator for this learning expectation is:  Knows and can say first name. Again, this is one that most children conquer. If a child does not know and can say their first name by two and a half years old, you will most definitely need to have that child tested for developmental problems. This one serves as one of the best indicators of whether or not your child might be on the autistic spectrum.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

The Dangers of Knowledge without Wisdom

This post will be specific to Christian educators.  It will look at how dangerous it can be to have knowledge without the Godly wisdom necessary to apply that knowledge.  We will also look at knowledge that wisdom proves to be wrong and how to know the difference.

What is Knowledge?
Webster defines knowledge as something learned and kept in the mind. Other definitions include understanding gained by actual experience, range of information, and clear perception of truth.  In today's world, knowledge is gained through education for the most part.  Knowledge of skill can be acquired through experience but much of what we know has been taught to us.  Therefore, knowledge depends greatly on the voracity of the information conveyed.  One of my favorite quotes from President Ronald Reagan goes as follows:  "It is not that my liberal friends are ignorant, it is just that they know so much that is not so."  That completely sums up today's world.  The older I become, the more I see the truth in that quote.  So much of what we "know" simply does not match the reality of the matter.  The Bible tells us that knowledge puffs up.  Again, a truer statement could not be made.  People that believe themselves to be knowledgable often look down on those that they believe to not be as knowledgable.  Knowledge can only be as valuable as the source that produces it.  Therein lies the danger of knowledge.  Sometimes it is hard to know how reliable the source of the information proves to be.

What is Wisdom?
Webster defines wisdom as good sense.  It also has the definition of a wise attitude or course of action.  The world struggles with the concept of wisdom because the Bible defines it best.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  What does that mean?  When we understand that God is all and in all and through all and we have a healthful fear or respect for that, we understand wisdom.  Wisdom involves following God's way of doing things when all the world screams that you should not be doing that.  It is the deep understanding that the One that created the universe might have the inside tract on how things function and work.  When God is the foundation, everything else falls into its place.  Does the world have its own version of wisdom?  Yes but it is closer to knowledge than actual wisdom.  The first definition Webster gives for wisdom covers this concept which involves accumulated philosophic or scientific learning.  However, the voracity of the information accumulated absolutely affects the quality of the wisdom just like with knowledge.  Until you go to the Source of all things, you run the risk of building on the wrong foundation.

What happens when you have knowledge without wisdom?
As I stated in the section on knowledge, the Bible states that knowledge puffs up.  People that think themselves to be knowledgable also tend to be extremely arrogant.  Wise people tend to be humble.  How does this play out in the real world?  Knowledge without true wisdom breeds division and contempt for the "unknowledgable."  Knowledge paired with true wisdom breeds peace, joy, love, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.  Recognize that list?  That is the fruit of the Spirit.  The reason for the difference has everything to do with the foundation.  I have talked extensively about bias and worldviews.  Those two concepts affect everything.  They determine the foundation and that absolutely determines outcomes.  When your knowledge has no basis in God's truth, you are building on sand.  Whether you realize it or not, you come off as arrogant and pushy.  You will look down on those that do not share your "knowledge" despite your best efforts not to do so.  Even religious people can be terribly guilty of this practice.  Ever heard of the Pharisees and Sadducees?  Knowledge for the sake of knowledge in any area produces these results.  Knowledge applied through wisdom produces good results for the person and for all the other people in their orbit.  Wisdom edifies others.

What happens when wisdom discredits your knowledge?
This has actually happened to me a lot lately.  I have always trusted what I have been taught except when it obviously contradicts the Word of God.  Here lately, I have come to understand that almost everything I have been taught has to be filtered through its biases.  I now question almost everything.  I do not take anything at face value anymore.  I have also done a lot more research to find the beginnings of certain movements throughout history and their objectives.  It really does matter.  The more that you know the more you understand that people have agendas.  Those agendas drive what passes as knowledge.  People used to not be so gullible.  They took new knowledge with a grain of salt and shelved it to compare it to other knowledge.  That is wisdom personified.  Do not take every bit of information to heart until you have filtered it through the Word of God and prayer.  God will show you if you are patient what is real and what is not.  He is the source of all knowledge.  Do not trust "smart" people just because they have all the degrees in the world.  You must know if what they have been taught comes from the Maker of the universe or the god of this world.  If the god of this world proves to be the source, run from it like your life depends on it.

How does this apply to early childhood?
I have written extensively on the basis of much of what passes for early childhood theory.  Most if not all of the "knowledge" taught in early childhood classes has a secular humanistic foundation.  This is a problem.  A great deal of it outright contradicts what the Word of God teaches.  As Christian educators you have a decision to make.  Do you trust these humanistic experts? Or do you trust the Maker of the universe that might just maybe know how children grow and develop?  What is the basis for your knowledge?  How much value do you place on Godly wisdom?

Conclusion
My fellow Christian educators, the time has come to lay our fears aside and STAND for what our God tells us.  We have cowered in fear and our society has paid an extremely heavy price for our cowardice.  Whether they know it or not, our presence provides blessings and our absence brings chaos.  If we do not stand, God does not bless us.  How many times in the Bible does our Father tell us to stand firm and having done all to stand.  Lay aside the knowledge that comes from the world and take up the wisdom of God without apology.  Only when our knowledge has been firmly grounded in the Word of God will we see the good results we all want for all children.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

Cognitive and Language Development for 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds - Early Literacy and Communication (Part 1)

This post will finish the discussion for Cognitive Development and begin discussion of Language Development.  We will zero in on the components - Phonological Awareness and Receptive Language.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

First, we look at the component - Phonological Awareness.  The learning expectation is:  Engages in and enjoys word play with silly sounds and real and nonsense words.  The performance indicator is:  Plays with words himself if he hears adult modeling rhymes and silly-sounding words.  To be truthful, I have not seen many children this age conquering this particular performance indicator even with adult modeling.  With adult modeling I do see this 6 months to a year later.  We have so many compounding effects of our culture on our children from chemical exposures to bombardment of technology that language development gets lost in translation.  This is sad beyond words.  However, do not lose hope.  Read to children.  Play silly word games with them even if they do not play along at first.  Stay after it.  Until an adult models this, they will never conquer this performance indicator.

Now, we will move on to the component - Receptive Language.  The learning expectation for this one is:  Understands questions, simple directions, beginning concepts, and the ideas and sequence of stories. The first performance indicator is:  Responds to two-part, related directions that are more complex (e.g. "Pick up your shoe and give it to me.").  Unless there is a serious language or developmental delay, most children conquer this one by the age of 2 and 1/2 years.  Receptive language tends to develop much sooner and broader than spoken language.  However, language delay will rear its ugly head with this one as well.  I have had children that do not show true comprehension of receptive language until they are almost three.  Some children can do the one-step instructions or instructions in sequence.  For example, you can tell them to pick up the shoe.  Then you tell them separately to hand it to you.  The children that can do the instructions in sequence tend to be children with attention problems and the two-step instruction creates an issue for them.  However, even these children can build up to the two-step instruction with practice.  It will take a conscious effort on the part of the adult to make sure to work through this process.  Many parents and teachers do not realize they are not giving a two-step instruction if they have grown accustomed to the instruction in sequence process.

The next performance indicator is:  Listens to simple stories and points to associated pictures.  This one very much depends on how much a child has had an adult read to them.  Listening is a skill that must be developed and that takes practice.  I have seen children this age sit through some fairly long books because they had been read to since they were born.  I have seen other four year olds not make it through a shorter book because they were not accustomed to having someone read to them.  I once told a room full of parents that I as an educator can tell within five minutes how much they read to their children.  The children show their level of expertise with listening as soon as you read to them.  A parent can lie all they want about how much they read to a child, but the child's ability to listen will tell on them.

The next performance indicator is:  Understands possessive nouns ("my," "mine," "yours").  Unlike a lot of other language performance indicators this one is nearly universal.  Even children that drag in development understand "my, mine, and yours" fairly quickly.  If a child does not understand this one by the age of 2 and 1/2, you will need to have them tested.  A severe language delay or disability may be at hand.

The last performance indicator that we will look at this time is:  Understands routines.  For children that have a daily routine this one comes naturally.  Routines have a way of becoming a part of a child's emotional makeup quickly.  Children that are not used to routines will resist routines with every fiber of their being until you get them used to it in spite of themselves.  Then they calm and settle in.  Most parents swear that I have completely changed their child.  The difference blows them away.  Little children need routines.  They thrive when their days progress in an orderly process.  It does not have to be an elaborate routine, but when breakfast, lunch, nap, supper, bedtime all occur at the same time everyday, they tend to be happy little campers.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

The Dangers of Social Justice

This post will take a look at the dark side of the social justice movement from a Christian worldview standpoint.  We will discuss how Christianity and the social justice movement compare and contrast.

What is Social Justice?
The United Nations definition of social justice describes it as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth.  The development of the concept mirrored the rise of the socialist/Marxist theories in western Europe in the 1800s.  Therefore, it shares a philosophical foundation with standard socialist theory such as the ideas of wealth redistribution and equality of outcomes.  On the surface these types of idealistic notions seem harmless and may even seem based on Christian principles.  For example, Christ commands us to take care of the poor and oppressed, but does he necessarily advocate for equality of outcomes.  That concept, the equality of outcomes, represents the very heart of socialism and social justice.  Does that concept have basis in Christian theology?  One only has to look at the parable of the talents to understand that God does not share that particular philosophy.  In fact, He states that to him who has shall more be given and to him who does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away.  God never intended people to be equal in output and outcomes.  He loves us all but we all have different functions and therefore different needs.

Not a Tame Lion
The title of this section will not make sense unless you know that it is a quote about the great lion, Aslan, in C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.  This allegorical story states that the great lion, Aslan, is good but he is not a tame lion.  Of course, Aslan represents Jesus in these stories, but what does that mean?  C. S. Lewis was trying to convey that God's goodness transcends our thoughts of goodness.  God does not fit our ideas of good.  He is not tame.  This concept most accurately describes how social justice and Christianity part ways.  Our God is an all consuming fire.  We often forget about his holiness and only concentrate on his kindness.  However, many verses talk about the kindness and severity of God.  One cannot truly understand His kindness without also understanding His severity.  Our God does not take any sin lightly.  He does not wink at it.  He also does not change His mind.  The concept that God evolves with the flow of the history of man constitutes one of the great heresies of our time.  "I am the Lord God, I change not."  Only focusing on His kindness leads many Christians to look at situations through a skewed lens.  A Christian must filter everything through the Word of God.  We cannot excuse sin just because it causes suffering.  Sin always causes suffering.  God built that into the universe.  We have not been put on this earth to bring about utopia.  We have been put on this earth to draw all men unto Him.  He told us that this world is fallen and only He can fix it.  Until we start our presuppositions from that point, we will always deviate into heresy.

Moral Norms vs Social Norms
One of the main pillars of the modern progressive movement and social justice advocates involves the concept of social norms.  What are social norms and how do they contrast with moral norms? To answer that question one must first understand the philosophical foundation of the progressive movement.  Remember everyone has a worldview and that worldview dictates the philosophical foundation of the concepts that derive from that worldview.  The philosophical foundation for progressives is relativism.  Truth, justice, and all the underlying concepts derive their meaning from the culture in which they arise.  Relativists do not believe in set right and wrong standards.  A culture can set those standards based on the wants and needs of the individuals of that culture.  On the other hand, moral norms or standards are set by an outside force such as a religion.  These standards do not change over time with the evolving of the culture.  Social norms do change almost constantly.  Christianity has as its basis the Bible which functions as the standard for all norms.  The surrounding culture does not dictate the norms of the Bible.  They do not change.  People living by social norms must constantly keep track of what is and is not acceptable at any given time.  What has been acceptable can suddenly change leaving its followers scrambling to learn the new standards.  (Pronouns anyone?)  Therefore the concept of social justice must also constantly change with the underlying social norms.  To live your life based on social norms is to live your life on a ever changing foundation.  For me, I say, "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.  All other ground is sinking sand."

Free Speech vs Hate Speech
Another contrast between Christianity and the social justice movement involves the concept of free speech.  The heritage of our country has long protected speech even offensive speech as encapsulated in our First Amendment.  Traditional liberals used to defend this freedom to a fault as long as the standard of offense came from the right.  Left-leaning offensive speech falls under the protection of the First Amendment.  However, now we have a situation in our country where the standard of offense comes from the left.  Does speech that offends the left get the same treatment as speech that offends the right?  No, NO, NOOOO!!!  Social norms and free speech do not coexist with one another very well.  Social norms dictate that culture define our ideas of what is and is not acceptable.  Therefore, when the left controls the culture, speech that offends the left falls into the category of unacceptable.  Unacceptable speech threatens the social norms and is thus labeled as hate speech.  Moral norms are not affected by what is and is not acceptable in the culture.  Offensive speech to the right brings with it consequences in how people relate to one another but it does not threaten the norm itself.  The norm is set in stone and cannot be swayed by public opinion.  In order to rule by social norms, the left must squash all dissent to maintain its control.  This explains why conservative speech and Christian speech threatens the left so much.  True free speech threatens the lefts power base.  It cannot be allowed.

God's Justice vs Social Justice
Now I will look at the last contrast between God's definition of justice and social justice.  I left this one for last because a culture's definition of justice flows from the standards and norms of that culture.  God's justice flows from moral norms (Bible).  Social justice flows from social norms (political correctness).  These two standards of justice cannot coexist because they are built on different foundations.  Christians that follow after social justice either do not have a working knowledge of the Bible or have fallen for the fallacy that the Bible does not have to be the standard for our lives.  A person with a working knowledge of the Word of God and that fully understands God built His justice into the fabric of the universe cannot reconcile social norms for the standard of his/her life.  Ever wonder why so many people are beginning to despise political correctness?  Living by shifting standards presents the most exhausting way to live possible.  People may have hated moral norms because they did not want to admit that certain acts are sin, but at least under moral norms the rules always stayed the same.  If you fail to get the memo on the latest change in social norms, you will find yourself on the wrong side of the mob.  Eventually most everyone finds themselves on the wrong side of the mob.  Ever wonder why we have so much despair in our country today?  God's justice functions like those pesky boundaries that little children outwardly despise but inwardly they give a sense of order to their universe.  It brings peace.  Social justice functions like a permissive parent that wants to be the child's peer instead of a parent.  Outwardly the child seems to like the situation but inwardly they have no sense of bearing.  They do not understand the rules.  It brings despair.

Conclusion
Now let's bring this into the early childhood arena.  Should a Christian early childhood educator teach social justice?  I hope by this point in this article you understand that the answer to that question is no.  Do not teach these precious little ones that they have to live on shifting sand.  Teach them the standards that will bring them peace and not despair.  Stand firm on what you know is right.  Will it cost you?  Probably.  Do it anyway!!

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

Cognitive Development for 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds - Early Writing and Auditory Discrimination

This post will continue the discussion of cognitive development of 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds focusing in on the components - Early Writing Behaviors and Skills and Auditory Discrimination.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

Before I get to the normal discussion, I want to discuss something very near and dear to my heart at the moment.  Since I started this blog I have discussed in great length how I have seen a deterioration in cognitive development and language development.  This deterioration baffled me and at first, I attributed to the lack of reading aloud to children.  But now, I have seen something in my own granddaughters that I feel adequately answers the question of what has happened.  My third granddaughter is showing all the signs I have discussed of language delay and cognitive delay.  My fourth granddaughter is developing according to what I am accustomed to seeing from even when my own children were small.  What is the difference?  My fourth grandchild has not been vaccinated since her first round of shots.  My third grandchild received her vaccinations through two years old.  She will get no others.  She has been vaccine-injured.  We are convinced of this.  The longer she goes without the vaccines the more she pulls up but she will lag behind for several more years.  I used to be all about getting all of your vaccines, but I will not do that anymore.  It changes you when it happens to one of your own.  Now that I have started doing my own research, I am convinced that the chemicals and additives and the sheer volume of vaccines that they administer to children now fully answers the question of why our children have all of a sudden began to exhibit all of these cognitive and developmental problems.  It does not matter to me if you believe me.  Do your own research.  Do it thoroughly.  You may come to the same conclusion that I have.

Now to the usual business at hand.  We will begin with the component - Early Writing Behaviors and Skills.  The learning expectation is:  Uses variety of writing tools to make scribbles.  The performance indicator is:  Holds tool in palm of hand using all fingers (palmar grasp) and scribbles.  Most children this age actually conquer this performance indicator when allowed to scribble.  The problem I have found is that many, many parents do not allow their children to scribble.  They hand them an electronic toy of some sort instead because it is less messy.  I have news for the parents of today.  Children are messy.  If you believe that you can alleviate all mess from childhood, then you are on the path to truly mess up your children in ways we probably cannot comprehend.  All of the inconvenient messes have their purpose.  Let the messes be and learn to live with a little mess and chaos.  It is called childhood.

Now we will move on to the component - Auditory Discrimination.  The first learning expectation is:  Is aware of and can identify many sounds in the environment.  The performance indicator for this one is:  By 30 months, child stops activity to focus on interesting sounds around her (e.g., dogs barking, birds singing, and sounds of trains, planes, sirens, vacuums, etc.).  Most children meet this performance indicator unless a hearing problem occurs.  If a child does not meet this performance indicator, a hearing test should be administered by a professional.

Lastly, we will cover the learning expectation:  Begins to distinguish between words with similar phonemes, such as pat and path.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Makes accurate distinctions between words that contain very similar-sounding phonemes, such as path-pass, hat-pat, bug-bud, map-nap, shot-shop. hit-hat.  This performance indicator assumes a great deal of auditory language development that I have not seen in years from this age range.  It has a been at least a decade since I have seen two year olds with enough language skill to discern between words this complex.  I will refer you to my opening as to why I think these delays are happening, but what do we do?  Reading to the children regularly still helps but I have seen even this to be limited to how much it can accomplice.  Removing processed foods from their diet also helps.  Our poor children have been inundated with chemicals.  What have we done?

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

The Dangers of Political Correctness

This post will look at how political correctness has permeated every aspect of our culture and the consequences and outcomes that has in the early childhood field.

What is Political Correctness?
Political correctness could be defined as socially acceptable responses developed on social norms for challenging and divisive topics.  I would say that is how the left defines it.  The right defines political correctness as a propaganda technique to shut down debate on topics decided by the left with rules defined by the left.  I tend to go with the right's definition.  I say that because what was politically correct a decade ago sends the left into hysterics now.  Political correctness is constantly evolving to take our society further and further to the left.  The right has no say in what is politically correct at all.  It is defined in the universities, which are completely dominated by progressive thought.  In fact, I am convinced that they have classes to constantly redefine what constitutes political correct thought.  For example, I went to my daughter's graduation at the University of Chicago a few years ago and made the mistake of calling people from east Asia Oriental.  I got a long lecture on how that term derides people of that area and conjures up ideas of colonialism.  You see, all things that have anything to do with Western Civilization are evil to the core.  They must be eradicated from our existence at all costs.  White people of European descent have ruined the world and must be punished for their crimes.  This, people, is political correctness in a nutshell.  I fear that Asian people may also fall into the crosshairs of the progressives as well because they tend to dominate in intellectual circles.  It is all about the crab bucket.  When one race or people tries to crawl out and make a better life, the rest of the crabs pull them back down.  That is the best picture of progressivism I can give you.  

Why was Political Correctness Developed?
Political Correctness had its beginning in the 1990s on college campuses as a way to push social norms over moral norms.  What is the difference?  Social norms can evolve with the changing views of a society.  Moral norms are based on right and wrong which has stood the test of time.  Most of the time moral norms are based on absolutes such as the Bible.  Progressives of the 1990s wanted to do away with some moral norms in which they did not agree such as traditional marriage, traditional male and female roles, and most anything having to do with sexuality.  This was the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s on steroids.  Then they decided that all things having to do with Western Civilization were evil and had to not only be eradicated but had to be punitively treated.  We were given diversity as the greatest god of all time as if just having a diverse group of people made everything perfect and good with unicorns flying around with rainbows in their hair.  Multiculturalism was pushed on us, but now what was multiculturalism in the 1990s is not good enough for the progressive of today.  They want everyone to revert back to tribalism and demand exact equal treatment for all regardless of any effort on the part of the people involved.  It is socialism pure and simple.  It never stops.  We will never reach perfection of political correctness because as soon as we reach one goal, the next group begins to demand their equal treatment.  A decade ago we would never have thought that transgender rights would be pushed on us like it is.  Guess what is next?  Pedophiles.  If you do not believe me, make a note of this and revisit it in 10 years.  Pedophilia is accepted in certain cultures around the world including some Muslim countries.  We are already completely afraid of saying anything bad about Muslims because of political correctness.  It does not take a rocket scientist to see where this is going.

What is the Big Deal?
If you have ever crossed the PC police either purposely or innocently, you know the answer to that question.  Never in all of your life will you be called every name in the book so quickly as when you dare not to tow the party line on every single facet of this one.  If you do not believe me, ask Susan Collins, the senator from Maine.  She has worked all of her career to advance women's issues but as soon as she decided to have a mind of her own and go against the mob, she had to hire a security detail.  Another case would be Kanye West.  He has been derided and racially slurred for daring to be black and not progressive.  (The same sin as Clarence Thomas.)  One side of an argument cannot dictate the whole of the conversation.  How many classical liberals now find themselves on the wrong side of the politically correct mob?  They keep changing the rules.  As I said, what was once accepted is no longer accepted and if you do not keep up with it daily, you can make an innocent mistake that puts you on the wrong side of the mob.  And they are a mob.  Make no mistake about it.  Dissension is not allowed.  You must agree with them or you have to shut up and sit down.  Hillary Clinton just told us that they do not have to be civil to people that disagree with them until they get their way.  I do not know about you but that is not the type of society I want to live in any longer.

Conclusion
How does this all relate to the early childhood world?  No other field in academia except maybe psychology has a more progressive/liberal bias than early childhood.  Political correctness holds sway without much push back at all.  Have you ever tried to cross the liberal bias in this field?  I have and it is very ugly.  Only two allegations in this society get the "guilty until proven innocent" treatment.  One is sexual assault and the other is child abuse.  I was falsely accused of child abuse.  Another provider I know had her son falsely accused of sexual assault.  They do not even beat around the bush either.  They go straight to completely destroy without any ifs, ands, or buts.  Proving your innocence takes years to accomplish and you never really get your reputation back.  That is why they do it.  They do not allow dissent.  Political correctness is a cancer that is eating our society alive from the inside out.  For the first time in a long time I actually have hope that the sleeping giant will wake up and throw off the shackles that the progressives have placed on us for years.  As I said, I do not want to live in a society that has constantly shifting norms.  I refuse to tow the party line.  Who is with me?

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

Cognitive Development for 2 to 2 1/2 year olds - Early Literacy

This post will start posts for the age group of 2 to 2 1/2 year olds.  It will focus on the area of learning - Early Literacy and cover the components  - Picture and Story Comprehension and Book Reading Skills.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

We will start with the learning expectation:  Begins to understand the connection between books and personal experiences.  The first performance indicator is:  Talks about the characters and events in storybooks in ways that suggest understanding of what has been said or read.  Wow!  I have not really seen a two to two and a half year old that could do this in about 5 to 7 years.  Most of the children this age are barely speaking much less conveying that type of language.  Most of the three year olds struggle with this performance indicator.  Only those fortunate children that have parents that read to them every day might conquer this performance indicator.  However, those same parents would also have to be the ones that greatly restrict screen time as well.  More and more research is coming forward that links massive screen time to the language delays we see all the time in the early childhood world.

The second performance indicator is:  Relates events in books to personal experiences.  Again, it has been years since I have seen a two year old conquer this performance indicator.  Children in our society can work a smart phone but they have so little experience with books to conquer this until they are three years old.  This performance indicator requires quite a bit of book experience.  Most two year olds can barely get through half a book without walking away and becoming disinterested.  We must read to our children!!

The third performance indicator is:  Makes associations among similar books (e.g., child gets two books about trains and shows the adult that they contain similar pictures or events).  Some of today's two year olds might actually conquer this particular performance indicator only because it involves pictures.  We have so tilted our culture to be visually dominant that even those children over exposed to screens can find similar books based on pictures.  However, if you expect them to talk about it, you will be sadly disappointed.  The association will not go further than the similar pictures and the word "train."

We will now move on to the component - Book Reading Skills - with the learning expectation - Recognizes and enjoys reading familiar books.  The first performance indicator is:  Recites whole phrases from favorite stories if the adult pauses at opportune moments.  Again, this is another performance indicator that I have not seen two years old conquer for several years.  I have actually seen three year olds not have enough book experience to be familiar enough with any book to do this.  This performance indicator assumes that a child has a book read to them over and over again.  The sad truth is that many parents do not read to their children at all.  Many childcares do read but other activities required by all the crazy regulations make reading the same book over and over not really feasible.  Therefore, children do not receive enough exposure for this one until they are nearly four years old.

The second performance indicator for this one is:  Protests when an adult misreads a word in a familiar and usually predictable story.  I hate to be a broken record but two year olds in today's culture do not conquer this one.  No one reads to them enough to acquire that much book experience.  Many three year olds cannot conquer this performance indicator.  They have never heard a story enough to know when the adult does it wrong.  They even have so little experience with books that the repetitive nature of some stories goes over their head for months.  People, it is time to put down the tablets and phones and start reading to your children.  The language delays we are experiencing are real and are only going to get worse.

I hope you have enjoyed this post!!  Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade 

The Dangers of Fatherlessness

This post will look at the scourge of fatherlessness in our society and how that affects our children especially boys.  It will also look at how feminism and the push for gender neutrality in our society is absolutely reeking havoc on our social structures and foundations.

What do I mean by Fatherlessness
Of course, fatherlessness means the absence of a father/male role model figure in the lives of children.  We have seen an explosion of single mother households in the last half century as well as a nearly 50% divorce rate in this country.  These are horrible statistics that have had devastating consequences in our culture.  However, the worst part of these statistics is the glorification of new ways of defining family as if the traditional model of the family provides unsavory outcomes.  Over the centuries we have had single mother households due to death, divorce, and abandonment but we have only recently decided to celebrate that outcome as if it is to be desired more than the traditional household.  As in all things liberal, in trying to remove the stigmatization of single mothers they went WAY too far.  The liberals and feminists in our country during the 70s, 80s, and 90s wanted to help single mothers feel better about themselves since our divorce rates were skyrocketing.  They wanted to remove the guilt and shame of failing marriages.  What they should have done was to try to curb the rapidly rising divorce rates and undergird traditional marriages.  However, that would have meant that the sexual revolution of the 60s, 70s, and 80s had negative consequences and feminists would not/could not bring themselves to admit that.  I also believe that undergirding many of these progressive movements of the 20th century were people with communist/socialist leanings that had much bigger intentions.  They had ulterior motives for our social breakdown.  In the beginning most of the population did not see the harm in what they intended because they masked their true intentions behind flowery words and proposals.  Now, after nearly a century of their work, we reap the ugly truth of what they meant for us all along - the removal of God from our culture and the breakdown of our family units.  Every communist/socialist movement ever has had to truly remove those two foundational pillars of a society in order to force a revolt through uprising.  People we are almost there.

Toxic Masculinity and Feminism
Our culture has gone so far beyond the feminism of the 70s, it is almost unbelievable.  Most feminists from that time period wanted to empower women not remove men from society.  Now, we have what is called toxic masculinity.  All the traits that have previously been attributed to manhood now have the label toxic.  The feminists of today want domination and maybe even extermination of the traditional male role model.  That goes so far beyond trying to make single mothers feel better about themselves.  Now they would have you believe men are not even necessary.  Not only are they not necessary, all the traits that make a man a man have detrimental effects on society at large.  The patriarchal family should be removed from our societal consciousness according to the new feminism.  It is hard to even begin to unravel this lie from the pit of hell.  The first step to begin the unraveling is to attack the underlying ulterior motive.  The progressive movement hates the patriarchal family model because it represents God's model for the family and one of their longterm goals is the removal of God from society.  God's model must be destroyed at all costs.  Therefore, the traditional male role has to be undermined.  What better way to undermine it than label it as toxic.  However, that is not where it started and to completely fix the problem we must understand the roots.  The progression of our evolution along this path as a society goes as follows - women need empowerment, women can do everything a man can do, woman do not really need men, men are basically toxic.  This progression took decades to accomplish but the end goal of emasculating men has been underlying this movement from the very beginning.  To destroy God's model for the family, men must be either emasculated to the point they are no longer men or removed from the picture altogether.  People please do not be blind anymore.  The goal of political correctness is to remove God from our culture and to destroy the traditional family.  The collateral damage of such a movement can already be felt in this culture - an explosion of depression, despondency, drug addiction, violence, hate, chaos.  The only cure for what ails our culture is a relationship with our Creator.

Gender Neutrality
One thing that must be understood about political correctness is that what counts as politically correct now will not be good enough next year.  Once one boundary has been eliminated, the progressives will set their sights on the next boundary.  No current issue describes that process better than the gender neutrality issue.  Five years ago, you would have been laughed out of existence if you had said that the progressives would move on to destroying gender when at the time they were pushing homosexual rights.  They swore up and down that once they had marriage equality, they would be satisfied.  How dumb can we be?  Now we are told that gender is fluid and a matter of how one feels.  This is ridiculous.  People, biology tells us that we have two genders - male and female.  In order for there to be other "genders" requires chemicals and surgeries to undo natural biology.  No sane person can think that there will not be devastating consequences to trying to destroy gender.  Why are the progressives trying to destroy gender norms?  It all goes back to trying to remove God from our culture every single time.  God told us to be fruitful and multiply.  We cannot multiply unless we have normal males and females to do so.  The birthrates of first world countries has been declining for decades.  This new push will only compound that exponentially.  I will tell you that if you think gender neutrality will be where all this craziness stops then you are delusional.  Their next target will probably be pedophiles.  I already hear the rumblings of that in certain progressive circles.  Do not tell yourself that they would never go there.  Five years ago, we as a society could not imagine that gender would be fluid.

We need our men
People, we need our men to be men not some sissified version of a man.  God intended men to be the provider/protector of the family.  God hardwired a man's brain to function differently to fulfill those purposes.  God hardwired women to be the nurturers.  When we fight against God's design, we bring depression and despair on ourselves and our society.  The big discussion in our society now is why have some of our boys and men turned violent and homicidal.  Could it be the byproduct of labeling them toxic?  Could it be that we have tried to remove positive male role models from their lives and then expect them to turn out okay?  Can you honestly look at how the present generation is doing and say with a straight face that our experiment with fluid gender and redefinition of family is working out?  As a woman that has been both a stay-at-home mom and a working woman, I will tell you that being a "traditional" woman can be one of the most freeing experiences you will ever have.  When all I had to worry about was taking care of my home, life became so pure and simple.  It was hard work, mind you, but it lacked the stress of trying to run a business.  When I came under the leadership of my husband and let him be provider/protector, it freed me to be fully mother and wife.  Our society not only vilifies men but also stay-at-home mothers and wives like that role has no worth at all.  They could not be more wrong about a subject if they tried.  Traditional men and women roles provide the glue that holds society together.  Either we quit fighting that or accept that our society will continue to unravel as we continue to fight God's plans and purposes for our lives.

Conclusion
Now let us take this into the early childhood realm.  My first question to you is:  How do you treat the men/fathers in your realm of influence?  Do you treat them as imbeciles that have no idea how to do anything right?  Do you treat them as lumps of clay that are not really necessary?  Guess what, the boys in your sphere of influence are watching how you treat the men in your sphere of influence.  It is beyond important that you treat the fathers of the children you serve with as much respect as the mothers ESPECIALLY if there is a divorce situation.  That man needs to know that he is just as important in the life of that child as the mother.  My second question to you is:  Do you respect the wishes of the father when those wishes contradict your "training"?  You must remember the children in your care are not your children.  They do not belong to the state.  They belong to the parents.  You do not have the right to override those parents just because some leftwing progressive trainer has told you all about "best practices."  My last question to you is:  Are you promoting the progressive ideals of toxic masculinity and gender neutrality in your setting?  Sometimes we promote things in minor ways not realizing that our little bit in that direction gets multiplied when mixed with all the other influences of our culture.  We do not want to rock the boat and come under the wrath of the progressive left.  However, remember you will not answer for what the progressive left has done.  You will answer for what you have done.  Personally, I want no part of continuing our culture down this horrible path we find ourselves.  Someone has to have the backbone to stand up to these bullies and say enough is enough!!

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! 
https://linktr.ee/natawade